Cong questions IMCT’s authority to certify Naveen

Bhubaneswar: Questioning the authority of the Inter Ministerial Central Team (IMCT) that praised Odisha government's relief work in the cyclone and flood-hit districts, Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) on Friday said it would take up the matter with the Union Home Minister.

"The Central team has no authority to praise the state government without knowing the ground realities. The team was supposed to assess damages done by the calamity and not to praise the state government. We reject such statement. I think it had a conducted tour with all comforts provided during the assessment of damage following cyclone and floods," OPCC media committee chairman Narasingha Mishra told reporters here.

Mishra said the party would certainly draw the attention of the Home Ministry to the statement made by IMCT leader Rashmi Goel, Joint Secretary in the Home Ministry said.

At the end of the team's four-day tour to the calamity-hit districts, Goel had said the evacuation arrangements made by the state government was good and none of the affected told the team that they have not received relief.

This has earned both national and international praise for proper handling of the calamity, she said yesterday.

"When the district collector of Balasore and the special relief commissioner himself went on record admitting that the state government was taken by surprise by the floods that followed after the devastating cyclone, it is surprising that the Central team found everything was well-managed and relief materials provided in time," Mishra said.

While the team had no time to assess the loss and damage caused by the cyclone, it apparently had plenty of time to collect information about the evacuation by the state government, Mishra said ridiculing the leader of the IMCT.

The Central team's statement has come as a major embarrassment for Congress which had been making allegation of gross irregularities in distribution of relief among the affected people.